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Ethical aspects of cardiac surgery in elderly patients

Publication at Faculty of Humanities |
2023

Abstract

In cardiac surgery we sometimes encounter elderly patients who require heart surgery, but due to their advanced age they are at a high risk for surgery. In this case, the physician faces the ethical dilemma of whether to operate on a patient at an even higher risk at an advanced age, and thus to offer him a chance to prolong or improve his quality of life, or to refuse him for surgery because of his advanced age.

This can be considered as age discrimination.